One was a portly man with a gruff voice, who had passed through the
experiences of the forest fires that swept through Michigan, over twenty
years ago. As he told his story, he made the scenes so real that Lloyd
forgot where she was. She could almost smell the thick, stifling smoke
of the burning forest, hear the terrible crackling of the flames, feel
the scorching heat in her face, and see the frightened cattle driven
into the lakes and streams by the pursuing fire.
She listened with startled eyes as he described the wall of flame,
hemming in the peaceful home where his little son played around the
doorstep. She held her breath while he told of their mad flight from it,
when, lashing his horses into a gallop, he looked back to see it licking
up everything in the world he held dear except the frightened little
family huddled at his feet. He had worked hard to build the cottage. It
was furnished with family heirlooms brought West with them from the old
homestead in Vermont. It was hard to see those great red tongues
devouring it in a mouthful.
In the morning, although they had reached a place of safety, they were
out in a charred, blackened wilderness, without a roof to shelter them,
a chair to sit on, or a crust to eat. "The hardest thing to bear," he
said, "was to hear my little three-year-old Bertie begging for his
breakfast, and to know that there was nothing within miles of us to
satisfy his hunger, and that the next day it would be the same, and the
next, and the next.
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